Caps End Their 2012 Development Camp

The Caps ended their 2012 Development Camp with General Manager George McPhee and Head Coach Adam Oates speaking to the media and summarizing the week.

“Great, great,” Caps Head Coach Adam Oates said on the week. “As I said earlier it was a lot of hockey for them in a short span of time. They handled it unbelievable. The pace of the scrimmages were great…They went hard the whole time, right through to the end. I was very impressed with them.”

2012 first round Filip Forsberg, 17, signed his three-year entry level deal yesterday and even though he will be playing this season in Sweden, McPhee wouldn’t rule out the possibility of him playing in the AHL or NHL following the conclusion of his season in Sweden.

“It’s nice to get it done early,” McPhee said on getting his entry level deal done. “Obviously we like him a lot.”

Forsberg will make $832,500 at the NHL level and $70,000 at the AHL level.

McPhee also talked about their other first round pick, Tom Wilson, and how he throws his body around.

“He’s a big strong kid that really competes,” McPhee said. “Boy the first three or four shifts of the opening scrimmage earlier in the week…I was worried if he did that all week we would only have two or three players left on the ice, but we got him to settle down a little bit and protect everyone else the rest of the week.”

McPhee also added, “We really want to develop him as a top player.”

The two players who have a real chance to play up here sometime next season, Stanislav Galiev and Cam Schilling, both still have a chance to be up here according to McPhee.

“We’re really happy with him,” McPhee said on Schilling and added they expect him to push for a spot on the blue line.

On Galiev, McPhee said they’ll see how he looks in training camp and decide if he is NHL ready, if not he’ll go to the AHL Hershey Bears.

“A lot skinner than I thought he was,” Oates said on Ribeiro. “Oh my. He’s a rapper. He looks like a rapper.”

McPhee also discussed the assistant coach situation and said that they have agreed with one coach and hope to announce it next week.

“For me it’s vital who my assistants are going to be because it is my first job,” Oates said on choosing an assistant. “To have a guy that played in the game that I’ve had some personal time with is very important to me.”

Listen here to what George McPhee, Adam Oates and prospect Garrett Haar had to say following the conclusion of camp today.